Applications which use a fusion of optics and radar include driver assistance, navigation aids, collision avoidance and obstacle avoidance. Yet another important application is land surveillance. At sea, the fusion of optical sensors with radar is used to resolve mirage and signal ambiguity problems above the horizon, and to allow for fine accuracy target tracking. Air-to-Air target detection and tracking using airborne IRST and Fire-Control-Radar (FCR) is also known. The brightness of target signal data was also used to resolve the location of adjacent targets along with the radar data.
FIG. 1 is a table which compares various characteristics of existing optical detection units and corresponding characteristics of existing radar detection units.